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SECTION 2 HARMONY.
It is a mysterious but universally known fact, that harmony gives pleasure and discord pain. It is so in music, in painting, and in architecture, as well as in speech. This appears to be partly owing to the unity of action of our faculties in receiving impressions. As variety relieves them from too prolonged an exertion, harmony secures unity in their action. There is, there¬fore, an economy of sensitive power when the constitu¬ents of a compound object so correspond as to allow a harmonious action of the mental powers exerted upon it. Hence the importance of harmony between the idea and the medium in expression. The law of har¬mony applies (1) to Sounds, and (2) to Figures. I. SOUNDS. There has been much discussion of the question, How far may sound be an echo to the sense ? Some find numerous correspondences between words and things. Others regard their connection as wholly im¬aginary, and, if there be any imitation, they deem it as wholly accidental. It seems evident, after a careful study of examples, that speech has an illustrative power which depends on imitation or a very intimate and gen¬eral mental association. Without attempting an ex¬haustive treatment of so technical a subject, we may notice the illustrative effect of articulate language in representing (1) other sounds ; (2) time and motion ; (3) size ; (4) ease and difficulty ; (5) the agreeable and the disagreeable ; and (6) climax in sense. 1. Other Sounds. Some words unquestionably imitate natural inartic alate sounds. Thus hiss, whiz, crash and splash, s-P ordinarily uttered, correspond closely to the noises fu which they stand. There is certainly an onomatopoetic effect in the following lines from Pope " What ! like Sir Richard, rough and fierce, With arms, and George, and Brunswick crowd the verse; Rend with tremendous sounds your ears asunder, With gun. drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder? Then all your muse's softer art display, Let Carolina smooth the tuneful lay, Lull with Amelia's liquid name the nine, And sweetly flow through all the royal line." The following is a fine imitation of the sounds made by falling timber : "Deep-echoing groan the thickets brown. Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down." 2. Time and Motion. Quick time and lively motion are imitated by a succession of light and tripping syllables ; as in the line, "When the merry bells ring round." The galloping of a horse is suggested by the move¬ment of these lines : "At each bound he could feel his scabbard of steel Striking his stallion's flanks." Slow motion is expressed in the line, "Up the high hill he heaves the huge round stone." Slowness of motion and dignity are indicated by .ambics, as in the following : The list'ning crOwd admire the lefty sofind, A present deity, they shout around, A present deity, the vaulted roofs rebound. With rfivished efirs The monarch hears, Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres." Quick time and motion are expressed by trochees, as in this song to the wine god : " Bficchus ever fair and yfiung Drinking joys did first ordain. Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, Drinking is the soldier's pleasure. Rich the treasure, Sweet the pleasure, Sweet is pleasure after pain." Rapidity and impetuosity may be represented in anapests, as in the following, where the intermingling of iambics imparts a moody quality to the expression : "Revenge, revenge, Timetheus cries, See the furies arise! See the snakes that they rear, How they hiss in their hair, And the sparkles that flash from their dyes Beheld bow they tees their terches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes And glittering temples of their hostile gods. The princes applaud with a furious joy ; And the king seized a flambeau with seal to destroy." 3. Size. Size is capable of some imitation in words. Short and easily sounded words are often expressive of little¬ness, while cumbrous and ill-formed words are suggest¬ive of bulk, and sonorous combinations sometimes give rise to the feeling of grandeur. The following from Milton illustrates how great bulk may be ex¬pressed in verse : —" Part, huge of bulk, Wallowing, unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean." 4. Ease and Difficulty. Pope forcibly illustrates the excessive labor with which a dull writer "makes his barrenness appear," "And strains from hard-bound brains eight lines a year." Ease of movement is suggested by these lines : "Soft is the stream when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows." 5. The Agreeable and the Disagreeable. Agreeable or disagreeable feelings are produced by melodious or unmelodious sounds. How delightful are the feelingb aroused by such music as this of Whittier's : "1 love the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew." With what irritation do we hear such a line as this . "Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw." 6. Climax in Sense. Perhaps the most effective correspondence betweer sound and sense occurs when a climax of meaning and a climax of sound coincide. The following sentence from Sterne admits of a vocal prolongation of the last word, which adds much to the effect : "The accusing spirit which flew up to Heaven's Chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in ; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, and blotted it out forever." Notice how completely the effect is lost by intro¬ducing a number of small and weak words at the close : "The accusing spirit which flew up to Heaven's Chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in ; and the recording angel as he wrote it down, dropped a tear on it, and blotted it out once for all." Since every sentence should grow in the foice of its meaning to the close, the principle forbids the use of insignificant words at the end of a sentence, and re quires the longest and most sonorous members to be placed last. II. _FIGURES. Figures have various degrees of adaptability to the purposes of expression. This regards (1) the kinds of figures ; (2) their number; and (3) the objects from which they are drawn. 1. The Kinds of Figures. Calm reasoning and deliberate description direct us to the choice of figures founded on resemblance. The simile especially is adapted to what is unimpassioned, since to express a resemblance iraplies a somewhat de. liberate discrimination. On the other hand, impetti - one passions, obliterating fine distinctions, and seizing only salient points, impel us to the use of figures founded on contiguity. Of figures founded on resem¬blance, the metaphor is most accordant with emotion, especially personification, which is peculiar to an emo¬tional state of mind. The figures based on contrast occupy a middle ground, but of these the antithesis is the most deliberate, and climax, irony, and interroga¬tion are more emotive. Harmony, therefore, requires the selection of such kinds of figures as correspond with the ideas to be expressed. 2. The Number of Figures. That there is a relation between ideas and the num¬ber of figures to be used, is evident. Many figures crowded together confuse the understanding by their want of harmony with one another. If constructed for a common effect in producing emotion, they will not on account of their number fail to produce that ?motion, unless they are greatly confused. Hence in poetry, the language of feeling, we may properly use figures in greater profusion than in prose, the language if thought. 3. The Source of Figures. The objects from which figures are drawn should be in keeping with the ideas to be expressed. The dignity or meanness of an object from which a metaphor or a simile is drawn, is readily transferred to the object de¬scribed. Dean Swift has made an extensive and hu¬morous collection of examples, illustrating how authors may degrade instead of exalting their subjects by the character of their figures. When figures grow out of the subject by what might be called "spontaneous generation," harmony is almost inevitable. Any attempt to lay them on as external ornaments will make the expression seem artificial. In nature, all life develops from a primal cell ; in expres¬sion, every thing should proceed by natural evolution from a germ of thought. Thus a composition will have the unity and symmetry which mark an organic growth. The bestowment of excessive pains on the harmony of the idea and the medium, is certain to result in failure, just as a forced smile is certain to degenerate into a foolish grin. Milton speaks of "Thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers." What are these thoughts ? When the feelings of a musical composer are feeble and uncertain, he strikes the notes aimlessly, and his production possesses no distinctive character. When his emotions are definite and strong, he sweeps the key-boarl with a power of expression which holds and thrills his audience. In the first case, the emotions are dependent upon the expression ; in the second, they are free, and use the notes only as a means of utterance. So in verbal ex¬pression, thoughts vividly conceived, use the vocabulary as an instrument, while sluggish ideas creep along by the help of the language. Strong feelings and clear thoughts are, therefore, the primary conditions of all harmonious expression. Art may retouch and im¬prove in some instances, but such thoughts and feelings will spontaneously assume those forms which harmonize with the ideas expressed.